
aass_G\/iil 

Book_ 



_. 



ALICE AND I 

AT 

LARCHMONT 



/4 3 



PRINTED FOR PRIVATE 
DISTRIBUTION 



ALICE AND I 

AT 
LARCHMONT 



ALICE AND I 

AT 

LARCHMONT 



BY 



GHERARDI DAVIS 



PRIVATELY PRINTED 

AT THE GILLISS PRESS 

NEW YORK 

M CM X V 



J)3 



THE PICTURE OF "ALICE" IS A PHOTOGRAPH BY LEVICK 

COLORED BY MRS. DAVIS AND MYSELF 

THE OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS ARE FROM PICTURES 

TAKEN BY MYSELF 






OCT 16 iyj$ 



TO MY WIFE 



RACING and sailing are about as 
different operations as can well 
be imagined on the water, and 
sailing a boat without another near by 
for comparison, gives the man at the 
tiller but a very faint notion of what his 
boat can do. How often have we, who 
love sailing and racing, wished for some 
one to turn up with whom we might 
have a friendly scrap ! And how often, 
in spite of our knowledge to the con- 
trary, have we not allowed ourselves 
some bright morning, with a nice breeze, 
to be deluded by the thought that our 
boat was doing splendidly, when by her- 
self she was slipping through the water 
at what appeared to be wonderful speed ! 
And then, in the afternoon, when our 
class started, we found in a very, very 
short time, that, to windward, we were 
far from being the equal of our com- 
ix 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

petitors — and we came in anywhere but 
first. 

During the first two years of sailing 
Alice Q, Chubb and Bars tow and I had 
many a scratch race Sunday afternoons. 
It was great fun, too. We would some- 
times plan such a race ahead, sometimes 
we would just happen to see each other 
on the water, and then we would come 
together as fast as we could and sail a 
couple of courses as keenly as we did in 
the races on Saturday. For two years 
past, alas! we have had no such sport, 
Spider and Soya having both gone from 
the Lower Bay. Chubb now has Queen 
Mab — a beautiful little schooner, — and 
he has already added to his laurels by 
winning the Astor Cup in 191 5. He 
handles her like his old Q at the starts: 
I saw him last year at Larchmont with 
his bowsprit over the line as the signal 
for his class was given; just as Barstow, 
in the race on Labor Day this year, had 
Alice s forestay at the line, as the gun 
fired. Barstow sailed Alice for me in 
this race, and won (I was too sore with 
rheumatism to sail), and it was the only 
time any one but myself ever took Alice 
x 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

over the line in a race, and the only time 
she ever sailed a race without my being 
on board. 

The Q class, I told you in "Alice Q 
and her Rivals/' was going to pieces on 
Gravesend Bay in 191 3; last year we 
were four; this year we were but two, 
Virginia and Alice, and next year who 
knows whether there will be any Q's ! As 
my wife has long wished for a New York 
30, I have bought de Forest's, which 
bore the quaint name of Nepsi. He 
wishes to keep the name, and I have re- 
named her Alice. 

And as we have now said farewell to 
the Q's, I will spin a yarn or two to 
fill out the chapter of that famous and 
beautiful class, in which we had so much 
pleasure and such unexpected honors, 
and among the owners of which we made 
such warm friends. 

Gherardi Davis. 

Christmas, 191 5 



XI 



LARCHMONT 
RACE 
WEEK 




THE LADY AFTER WHOM 
"ALICE" WAS NAMED 



LARCHMONT 
RACE WEEK 



LARCHMONT Race Week brings 
together the most wonderful fleet 
of yachts imaginable, and this 
fleet is the most beautiful sight I have 
ever witnessed on the water. There are 
yachts of all sizes, rigs, designs, and col- 
ors. There are schooners, yawls, sloops, 
cutters, cat-boats, Butterflies, Stars, 
Jewels, dories and sailing navy-cutters. 
They are white, black, blue, mahogany, 
even yellow and green and red in color 
and, as we are told, the fleet has at times 
numbered nearly two hundred craft. The 
beauty of such a fleet on a bright, clear 
summer day no writer can adequately 
describe and no artist depict on canvas. 
The first time we went to Larchmont 
the famous sloops Aurora, Istalena and 
Winsome were there (they are no longer in 
commission, and one is now a schooner), 
3 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

and no large sloops in a class ever pre- 
sented more wonderful pictures. We 
small fry would work out of the harbor 
and get up near the line to watch the 
larger yachts start, and these three would 
come to the line, after all the jockeying 
their able skippers could think of, and 
cross, usually as close together as we Q's 
did. To see one of them come for the 
line a trifle free, and finding she was too 
early, luff, and shiver her headsails to try 
and slow down enough not to be ahead 
of time; and then to watch another, 
whose skipper had not timed it quite so 
finely, get to the line with splendid head- 
way and start on the gun, just before the 
first one had fully got under way again ; 
used to get us in such a state of excite- 
ment that we would run all manner of 
risks of fouls to see them. I remember on 
one occasion getting very close to Miladi, 
as she, with rather ponderous dignity, 
was about to tack, and being received 
by her sailing master with a volley of 
weird foVsle language. I asked Scott 
that evening if I had got in his way, but 
he replied, "My dear Sir, 1 wondered 
what on earth was the matter: I couldn't 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

for the life of me see that you were in our 
way." This was before the days of Bou- 
cher's inviolable and awe-inspiring " Re- 
stricted Area." 

As we Q's started a good half hour or 
more after the first large yachts, we had 
many an opportunity of watching their 
starts. The schooners, as a rule, did not 
interest me as much as the sloops, al- 
though I have often wondered how they 
escaped fouls in such close quarters. But 
when it came to the large sloops, and the 
New York 5o's, the P's, in their best days 
(they are now apparently also gone), and 
the New York 30' s, there was always 
something well worth seeing. 

Crew B and Steere and Keegan could 
call off the names of the yachts as read- 
ily as they could recite their alphabets, 
and you would suppose they lived with 
Lloyd's Register in their pockets. I al- 
ways admired their knowledge, for not 
only did they know a yacht by its pre- 
sent name, but they knew its old names 
and the names of its present and former 
owners — or pretended to do so. 

When eight or ten of the 50' s came to 
the line together, it was a sight to de- 
5 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

light the heart of a sailor. They were 
handled like Q's, and went about or 
jibed as readily as we did. While I 
never admired their looks — their fore- 
triangle is too small — they are wonder- 
ful yachts to watch as a class. There 
was no fuss or noise on deck as they 
tacked; you heard the clank of the 
blocks and saw the flash of the metal 
parts in the sun, as the great white 
sails swung over, while the hulls slipped 
through the smooth water with barely 
a ripple. One day at Mott's Point, I 
went about with a 50 as we made the 
mark, and she carried me along with 
her for several hundred yards before I 
dropped off her wave. I can see the 
owner now look over the side at us and 
wave his cap to me. But we did not 
win as did the 50 which Queen Mab 
towed off Newport in the same manner. 

A few years ago the little schooner- 
ettes, as they were called, made up a 
beautiful class to watch, but they too 
have vanished from the racing fleet. 

The New York 30' s were always a 
superb sight; for, like the 50% they were 
kept in perfect condition and being, like 
6 




; : 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

the large sloops, a one-design class, the 
uniformity of their appearance added 
greatly to the beauty of the sight. That 
class, too, has lost many of its old skip- 
pers — Nichols, Duell, de Forest, Roose- 
velt — but it keeps its good name and its 
old spirit. 

When our turn to start came we, of 
course, had our hands full. For some 
reason I have not learned how to make 
a good start at Larchmont. Few were 
even fairly good, and as the start in a 
class as closely matched as are the Q's 
often means the race, I have been de- 
cidedly not successful on the Sound. 
I should have done much better than I 
did. Still, I had no end of pleasure, and 
the few races I did win were worth win- 
ning, most decidedly. 

Racing on the Sound is an entirely 
different problem from racing on the 
Lower Bay. In the first place, the water 
is rarely rough, and, except with a hard 
Northeast or East wind, the waves have 
no great power. With us on the Lower 
Bay, the tides in the channels are so 
strong that even a light breeze against 
them quickly makes a hard sea. For this 
7 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

reason sailing and racing on the Sound 
are usually pleasanter and dryer work 
than with us. I must say, however, that 
the Sound tides I have encountered are 
not to be wholly despised, and an ebb 
tide at Matinicock Point is a very hard 
proposition to tackle in a light breeze. 

Again, beautiful as is the water with 
us out towards the Southeast, especially 
when a fresh breeze makes the sea line 
a deep blue; and fine as are the Nave- 
sink Highlands and the hills of Staten 
Island; the views on the Sound are much 
more attractive than on the Lower Bay. 
Again, the water is so deep and the 
Sound so broad as to permit of wonder- 
fully good courses being laid out, far 
better than we can have, because of the 
many shoal spots in the Bay. We have 
worked out some good courses of late, 
but we have not the free stretches of 
water they have on the Sound. 

There is one thing, however, in which 
the Sound is far behind us, and that is, 
the wind. For one day of racing when 
we have a calm, they have a dozen. 
And then there are certain peculiarities 
that we sailors from the Lower Bay have 
8 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

to learn about again and again. We are 
told, for example, that it is essential to 
keep close to the shore, from which the 
wind blows, and the closer the better. 
The first day of Larchmont Race Week 
this year I learned to my cost how liter- 
ally true this is. 

We had enjoyed the starts of the 
larger classes as usual, and as the first 
leg was a reach to Captain's Island, with 
the wind in the North or a trifle West 
of North, we Q's all kept along together 
very handsomely at first. But we soon 
noticed that the 3o's and the others 
which started ahead of us, had slowed 
down, and that we were overhauling 
them fast, and soon we, too, were mov- 
ing very slowly. Gradually we, the 30's, 
and some handicap yachts were trail- 
ing along in a group. Alice was well 
up with the others, but I had kept a 
trifle to leeward, as I did not wish to get 
into the luffing matches the others were 
in. We saw Arvia and Dixie, who were 
well to windward, luffing each other and 
being luffed by 3o's and handicaps, and 
I was rather congratulating myself that I 
was not a hundred yards further North. 
9 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

And so, too, was a 30 which was near us. 
Then happened one of those extraor- 
dinary things that come on the Sound. 
The wind dropped entirely where we 
were, and all the group to windward of 
us, except Virginia, moved on towards 
the mark which was a mile or more 
away. Why Virginia stood still was a 
puzzle, but after a while she too moved 
on. And there was Alice, with two or 
three other craft, motionless except for 
the tide, which was negligible, and there 
we stayed for half an hour. The water 
was as smooth as glass, and the sun was 
as hot as it could be. We were helpless, 
and as if to increase our trouble and try 
our tempers, we every now and then 
could see a belated yacht well in-shore 
sail slowly past us. And when at last 
we got a breeze, which carried us to 
Captain's Island, we saw, as we rounded 
that mark to stand across the Sound to 
Oak Point, the entire fleet ahead of us 
miles away. We were 40 minutes or 
more behind them ! 

In 19 1 2, at Larchmont, I witnessed a 
similar freak of wind. We had lain 
around the starting line literally for 
10 




CRAVEN SHOAL BUOYS 



I 



BENSONHURST MARK 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

hours, and had barely got strung out on 
the Sound on the way to Week's Point 
(it was almost calm and fearfully hot), 
when there came a fair breeze from the 
East. You could see a deep blue line 
on the water coming towards us, and 
very soon the sound made by the mov- 
ing of the fifty or more yachts about us 
could be heard. It was like a metallic 
tinkle at first, followed by a much louder 
noise, as the boats to windward began 
to move faster and faster. It was a 
wonderful sight. The towering sails of 
Medora filled first, and she started on 
her course, and gradually all of us got 
under way. But here I noticed a phe- 
nomenon I had never witnessed before. 
A couple of hundred feet to leeward of 
Alice was More Joy, and with her twenty 
or thirty other yachts, absolutely be- 
calmed. Not a breath of wind reached 
their sails from this Easterly breeze. 
The wind travelled to a certain point 
and then just vanished, and it was a very 
long time before More Joy got under 
way at all. 

This phenomenon in 19 12 was far 
more remarkable than our experience 
11 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

at Captain's Island this year, although 
this last was heart-breaking, and proved, 
positively, that the rule about sailing 
close in-shore must be followed literally. 
The rest of the 191 5 race is worth re- 
lating, for it was quite as extraordinary. 
We and the nearest 30 jogged along 
across the Sound together to Oak Point, 
and as we got there we began to ge,t a 
breeze from the West. The others of our 
class, Arvia (sailed by Commodore Ba- 
con), Dixie and Virginia, were already 
a long way towards the North side of the 
Sound again, on their way home, with 
the old wind. Griffin, who was with me, 
kept urging me to follow the rule literal- 
ly, and we did. We tacked in and out of 
the little bays, going in as close to the 
beach as we dared, and so, with a fresh- 
ening wind, we, and several others, 
worked towards Matinicock Point. 

While this was going on a great change 
had come over the sky. In the East, it 
was dark and lowering, in the Northwest 
it was black and to the Southwest huge 
thunderheads had arisen. We saw that 
a squall from the Northwest was sure to 
sweep across the Sound, but we did not 
12 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

care: we wanted wind, and plenty of it. 
Steere was on board and I believe kept 
appealing to his friend Boreas. The 
squall, however, got across the Sound 
well ahead of us, and then to the South 
there made up the worst looking cloud 
imaginable. It was so dark that the 
water had a pale green tinge, and the 
trees on shore were almost emerald in 
color. The red brick houses stood out 
most vividly and things in the sky 
looked as if almost anything might break 
loose. The wind was quite fresh as we 
made Matinicock Point buoys and had 
hauled just enough for us to lay our 
course for home close-hauled. To the 
South the lightning flashed vividly, and 
the thunder roared tremendously now 
and then, but as the wind from a new 
squall came harder and harder we were 
perfectly happy. We made things snug 
and started across the Sound, going at 
a magnificent speed, with our rail under. 
We were just on the edge of the squall, 
apparently, and held the wind fair un- 
til nearly across the Sound. Then it 
dropped fast, but it had unfortunately 
reached the other three Q's. They, after 
13 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

being almost becalmed, were now also 
travelling pretty fast, and we were finally 
beaten by only a few minutes by the lead- 
ing Q, Arvia. So fickle was the wind at 
the end that we had to make repeated 
tacks to fetch the line, on one of which 
we sailed nearly to the line on the wrong 
side! The wind kept heading us, as it 
usually does there at the stake boat. 

I do not mean to say that we never 
had any breezes on the Sound, for espe- 
cially this year we had very fair winds. 
And when we get a steady, fair breeze 
on the Sound the water as a rule is 
smooth, and Alice travels like a bird, 
especially on a close reach: that is her 
strongest point of sailing. On two days 
this year we had a perfect windward leg 
to Captain's Island, on one of which I 
was beaten, while on the other (the last 
day of Race Week) I just nipped Vir- 
ginia on the last tack at the buoy. That 
was the only day Alice was first. Vir- 
ginia won the series and deserved it. 
This year Alice, Arvia and Virginia each 
got firsts. Last year, Little Rhody got 
five out of six firsts easily; Alice won 
but one first, and that was on a day 
14 




AMBROSE CHANNEL 
BUOY l8 




FORT HAMILTON MARK 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

when we had a good breeze and a 
squall. 

If the start at Larchmont is beautiful, 
so, too, in its way, is the finish, especially 
when the last leg is across from Hemp- 
stead Harbor. The various yachts are, 
of course, scattered all over the last leg. 
Here and there two or three in a class 
are fighting it out to the finish, but, as 
a rule, there is a steady stream of yachts 
of all kinds, from dories, Stars and the 
other local one-design classes, up to 
the 5o's and the schooners. They ap- 
proach the finish line in groups or singly, 
a 30 and a yawl just ahead of a 50, and 
abeam of the 50, a schooner and a Star, 
each as insistent on her rights at that 
point of the race as if she were only with 
her own class. I must say that as a 
rule the larger yachts are very consider- 
ate of the smaller ones. How the Re- 
gatta Committees ever get the times is 
a puzzle to us sailors, but somehow they 
do it. 

From the finish, to our moorings, was 

sometimes a long sail, and again, with a 

fresh breeze, making our moorings, yes, 

and sometimes leaving them, was not 

15 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

at all a simple matter. For many a 
yacht was doing the same thing at 
the same time, all were in a hurry, 
and there is not a vast amount of 
room in the pretty little Larchmont 
anchorage. 

I do not know that all this gives you 
any idea of Larchmont Race Week. I 
cannot describe all the fun of meeting 
at the Club before and after the races. 
We would meet on the Club verandah 
before the races and discuss the wind 
and weather. Judge Clarke, of Audax, 
would be there and Butler Duncan, 
Clark of Irolita, the two Vanderbilts, 
Chubb, sometimes Dallas Pratt and 
Whiton. Then there were de Forest 
and Duell and Monks, Scott of Miladi 
and Ford of Katrina, Gartland of Robin 
Hood (to the nth power), Swan, Fish of 
Oriole, Corry, the King of the Stars, 
Luckenbach and many another good 
yachtsman. Then came the crowding 
into the launch to get to our various 
boats, and after the race there was the 
impatient tooting of horns for the 
launch as everybody wanted to hurry 
ashore. 

16 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

I have not the power to describe the 
beauty of sky and water and shore : I 
should have to be a far better writer than 
I can ever pretend to be, to do justice to 
the beauty of a summer day at Larch- 
mont. Nor can I give any idea of the 
exquisite effects of light as the sun goes 
down, when the water turns a deep blue, 
with purple shadows, and the sails are 
golden against the water and the pink 
sky over Long Island. Larchmont Har- 
bor and the Sound beyond, from the Club 
House are at that time lovelier than 
words can tell. You who may read this, 
if you have ever seen Larchmont under 
these conditions, know how beautiful it 
all is. 

If things have changed on the Lower 
Bay, so, too, have they changed on the 
Sound, and several familiar faces were 
missing this year. Some, like Noble, Sr., 
Duell and Coudert have given up racing 
for the present; some, like Duncan, Van- 
derbilt and Nichols, were on the Cup 
Defenders, and we saw them but once 
in Race Week; others, like Harry John- 
son, had joined the great majority. Then 
17 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

on the water, the big sloops had dis- 
appeared. The schoonerettes, as I have 
said, were absent, and so, too, the Stam- 
ford schooners, most of the P's and many 
a well-known S. But the true spirit of 
yachting was there, as always. 

One change was particularly pleasant 
to me. The Commodore of the Larch- 
mont Yacht Club was my old friend 
James B. Ford, and it seemed odd to 
meet him as I did, and talk of yachts 
and yacht club management, instead of 
District politics, on which we have both 
worked so hard in days past. He is a 
true deep-sea sailor and a real Commo- 
dore. 

Still, even this year there were many 
old friends on the Club verandah, just as 
we saw many a familiar yacht on the 
water, but there was also many a new 
sailor; and all came there for the love 
of the best of sports, yachting. And 
again and again I have been glad that 
I took it up, even if I was forty years 
late in learning to sail. 



18 



ON 

GRAVESEND 

BAY 



ON GRAV ES END 
BAY 



ANOTHER summer on the Lower 
Bay has gone by and with it 
another season of racing and 
sailing. Except that nothing has made 
up for the loss of my old sailing friends, 
Noble, Chubb, Barstow and Stewart, 
and their Q's, Grey jacket, Spider, Soya 
and Princess, it has been one of the best 
of summers. For I have sailed oftener 
in Alice and had more pleasure in her 
than ever before. It so happened that 
at the end of the season there was the 
most superb sailing weather, and over 
and over again only the coming on of 
darkness made my wife and me come 
ashore. And what glorious sunsets we 
had at the end ! 

Every time I go sailing I am on the 
lookout for something interesting. While 
again this year the wonderful fleet of 
21 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

ocean steamers was not to be seen, all 
summer Gravesend Bay was full of ves- 
sels loading with war supplies. They 
anchored up towards Fort Hamilton, 
and interfered not a little with our races. 
1 1 was a curious sight to see a big steamer 
surrounded by half a dozen barges from 
which case after case of ammunition was 
hoisted on board. Among the vessels so 
loading was a magnificent Russian four- 
masted bark, the Lynton, and we often 
sailed over to look at her: for she had a 
captain who kept his yards squared in a 
way that would have delighted an officer 
of our old navy. Then, of course, there 
were many visiting yachts, but none 
more beautiful than Katoura and Wind- 
ward. 

It was a cloudy and rainy summer, 
and the sky was frequently overcast. 
This often produced brilliant halos, and 
on two occasions we saw around the sun 
a perfect circular rainbow, the colors of 
which were very vivid. I had never 
seen such a phenomenon before. 

Of course we had our usual tussles 
with the tides at Buoys 18 and 13 and 
at Craven Shoals. On one day in Race 
22 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

Week at Can Buoy 12, after we passed 
that buoy, we tacked to go to Buoy 1 3 
up the channel, and worked out to wind- 
ward theoretically, but as a matter of 
fact we did not get very far and we kept 
Buoy 12 abeam of us for at least half an 
hour. The wake of the buoy, caused by 
the tide, was a good hundred yards long. 
When we got to 1 3, the tide was almost 
as bad. In fact, all summer the tides 
appeared to be unusually strong. 

We had many a sail on pleasant after- 
noons. Judge Weeks, Dr. Atkinson, 
Eliot Tuckerman and his wife, Barstow 
and Mrs. Barstow, my old skipper Hen- 
ry Eagle and his wife, Cump Sherman 
and others, came along sometimes, while 
I took young Finlay with me repeatedly 
and made him learn how to handle a Q. 
He is wedded to the Star class, and 
Stars, to judge from the praises sung of 
them at our Captains' dinner, are the 
greatest boats ever built. I wonder how 
yachting ever got along without them. 

Then I raced, of course, with Crew B, 
whose duties on the Seawanhaka Re- 
gatta Committee kept him away from 
Sea Gate far too often, but who is just as 
23 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

enthusiastic over yachts and the ladies as 
ever; Steere, who is even more of an old 
salt than he was ; Struthers, who is follow- 
ing the example of his old skipper, Noble, 
and is to be married; Keegan, a rattling 
good sailor, who, I wish, was more often 
at Sea Gate; and then Stebbins, who 
never forgets the sails but can spot a 
pretty girl in another boat a mile away, 
without glasses at that. Then there was 
Griffin, who tended sheet on four of the 
Larchmont races, and thinks almost as 
much of Alice and Aleck as I do; and 
Bullock, and once Henry Eagle on a 
race we won by the veriest fluke. I 
know they recall the days we spent to- 
gether with no end of pleasure and I 
hope we shall have many more of the 
same kind. George Church and Floyd 
Noble, I regret to say, could not sail 
with me even once this last summer. 

Virginia having been laid up after 
Larchmont Race Week, as the result of 
a slight injury, I sailed twice as crew 
with Bullock on his S, Loafer, and I re- 
newed my old acquaintance with cleats. 
In the first race, Steere and I were crew. 
It was a stifling hot afternoon, with very 
24 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

little breeze, but the crew did a lot of 
talking and kept advising the captain 
how to sail his boat. Bullock, as always, 
took it most good-naturedly, but he 
squared accounts with me, at least, be- 
tween the Fort Hamilton and the Ben- 
sonhurst marks, by making me sit on 
the boom to keep the mainsail out. 
What wind there was was with us: the 
sun was dead aft : and to say that I got 
hot but mildly expresses my condition. 
However, it was a crew's duty to do 
what he was ordered to do, and I sat 
there for an hour I should say, for we 
moved along very slowly, and chaffed 
Steere who was attending to the spin- 
naker, and now and then ventured a 
remark to Bullock. But oh! how it re- 
minded me of old days! We came in 
second and on time allowance remained 
second {Loafer was in the handicap 
class), and Steere and I promptly 
claimed all credit for the race. 

The next week Robinson and I were 
crew, and Crew B chuckled when I got 
my shins jammed by the tiller. "Now 
G," he said, "you know how it feels 
yourself," he having had many a black 
25 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

and blue mark from the tiller of Alice 
Q. This race was livelier than the last, 
as we had a fine breeze, and a sea in the 
channel. I lay out to windward (and, 
I confess, found the space allotted to me 
rather cramped) and got very wet. I 
also had the next day a fine black and 
blue mark along my ribs from lying up 
against a cleat. Again the crew gave 
advice, but this time we were squelched 
by the captain very soon after we 
started on the first windward leg. We 
handled the light sails, I thought, su- 
perbly; in fact, I quite flattered myself 
on my work as crew on an S. 

The Atlantic Yacht Club Race Week 
again was favored with superb weather. 
We had a larger fleet than last year, but 
in it there were only two Q's; Dixie has 
gone to the Sound for good. We had, 
however, a very handsome fleet of 
handicap boats from the Gravesend Bay 
Yacht Club and quite a large fleet of 
Stars. At Larchmont the Stars (there 
were upwards of twenty, I should say) 
looked like a flock of white birds, and 
they were a very lovely sight. Steere 
and Struthers sailed with me the first 
26 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

race, and Steere and Keegan on the two 
others : and we won all three. This gave 
us the beautiful Thompson Cup for the 
third time and it so became my own. 
And then, with Steere and Barstow as 
my crew, I again won the Childs Trophy. 
Last year I also won it and the Graves- 
end Bay championship as well. Surely 
good fortune came tumbling into Alice's 
cockpit with a vengeance during the 
past three years. Never were amateurs 
more pleased than we in Alice over our 
successes, and as for Aleck, he had a 
perpetual smile on his face, even when 
I growled at him for talking too much 
in one race. He has become a philos- 
opher, and no longer sighs over our 
defeats. 

I do not know who will race Alice Q 
next year, for she most likely will belong 
to some one else. But whoever he may 
be, I trust that he will look upon her, 
and treat her as a live thing, as I have 
done. She is a restless creature at her 
mooring, and capricious under sail. You 
cannot forget her for an instant when on 
the wind, and you have got to sail her 
quite differently from the Q's, her rivals. 
27 



ALICE AND I AT LARCHMONT 

One of the joys of racing lies in matching 
your wits against the other fellows' wits 
and I have met some pretty sharp wits 
on the rival Q's. Alice is a beautiful 
little ship to look at and she has cer- 
tainly won a name for herself; and for 
winning her laurels she and I owe a great 
deal more than we can tell to our crews 
and to Aleck. 



28 



My S was numbered "S 16." As I 
could not get "Q 16" I took "Q 61." 

/4/zc* Q's general dimensions are: 

Length over all ... 43' 6" 

Water line 27' 

Beam 8' 6" 

The peak of the mainsail is about 45 
feet above the water. 

In the five years that I have owned 
Alice Q, she has sailed in 1 1 7 races, and 
has won 33 races. 



29 



